Culture coverage on film, music, literature, media and events in Germany, Europe and Ukraine.
Friedrich Merz plans to read Christoph Hein's novel "The Ship of Fools" during his vacation. The FAZ comments on the choice as fitting and points to the long tradition of the Ship of Fools metaphor in politics.
In her column 'Lost and Found', Katja Petrowskaja writes about the search for community in times of war and crisis. The occasion is the Salzburg Festival, which this year was opened by Belarusian opposition figure Maria Kalesnikawa.
Raphael's Sistine Madonna is one of the world's most famous paintings. Originally, the altarpiece hung in a church in Piacenza before being sold to Dresden – but the pictorial program is still alive there, as FAZ reports.
Sony plans to stop selling games on Blu-ray discs from 2028. For Nico Ernst, this is an unacceptable loss for gaming culture – there would be alternatives.
After a two-year closure, the Gallery of Modern Art on the Schleswig Museum Island has reopened. From now on, 350 works by artists such as Käthe Kollwitz, Nolde, and Georg Tappert are on display in new light and with a revised concept.
Canadian pop star The Weeknd will perform three concerts at Munich's Arena in June 2026. They are the final shows of his tour before he plans to radically reinvent himself, according to his own statements.
In June 1966, the Beatles landed in Munich for the first and only time. Thousands of fans went wild, police lost control – and a horde of wrestlers, a broken elevator, and seven society ladies added to the chaos.
The Störtebeker Festspiele on Rügen start their 32nd season today with a completely new play. According to NDR, 'Likedeeler' shows for the first time a deep rift between Störtebeker and Michels.
Rock am Ring kicked off the season last week, but Germany's 2026 festival summer still has plenty to offer. From the North Sea coast to Berlin, music fans can look forward to major events featuring international stars across rock, pop, hip-hop, and electronic music.
The Staatstheater Wiesbaden presents Mozart's 'Così fan tutte' as a social-psychological experiment set in a lecture hall. The production by Marie-Ève Signeyrole impresses musically but falls short conceptually.
Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart will host the first major European retrospective of composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto from September 11, 2026, to June 20, 2027. The exhibition is titled 'seeing sound, hearing time.'
Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) produced a feature on Islamic-inspired modest fashion that compares women to mobile phones. The piece is clearly not intended as satire and reveals a problematic view of women's roles.
Martin's producer Robi Draco Rosa initially believed the song 'María' would end the singer's career, but it became his global breakthrough.
Catalan viol player Jordi Savall, recipient of the 2026 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, speaks in an interview with the FAZ about the healing power of music, intercultural influences, and his unusual sleep rhythm.
Social media continues to gain ground as a news source, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026, to which the Leibniz Institute for Media Research contributed a sub-study.
The discussion about artificial intelligence in the world of authorship is becoming increasingly heated. Mario Voigt has become a symbol of the conflict between tradition and innovation.
In June 1976, Dagmar Berghoff became the first woman to read the news on Germany's flagship Tagesschau broadcast, breaking a nearly 24-year male monopoly.
The Canadian circus Cirque du Soleil will perform its insect parade 'Ovo' at Munich's Olympiahalle in January 2027. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the 17-year-old production features 53 acrobats in insect costumes.
Michel Friedman was scheduled to speak at the opening of the 150th Bayreuth Festival about antisemitism and Richard Wagner. The festival management canceled the event due to security concerns, as reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The controversial statue of former Vienna mayor Karl Lueger has been re-erected under police protection. Vienna's Greens criticize the return of the monument as insufficient and warn of a problematic signal in times of growing anti-Semitic tensions.
Abdullah Ibrahim, the renowned South African jazz pianist and composer, has died at the age of 91. Cyril Ramaphosa announced the musician's death, citing information from the family.
The French artist JR has opened a walk-in cave installation on the Pont Neuf bridge. According to Euronews, the "Caverne" can be seen until June 28.
A 12-year-old girl has discovered a bronze arm ring from the Celtic period in Büdingen, Hesse. According to the FAZ, the roughly 2,700-year-old treasure is now on display at the Keltenwelt am Glauberg museum.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have proposed a new theory on the origin of biodiversity: stress factors such as tides and storms may have driven the evolution of sexual reproduction. According to Die Zeit, the prehistoric creature Fractofusus was evolutionarily stuck without sex.
The Frankfurt literature festival 'Literaturm' explored the tensions between East and West Germany in its 13th edition, with discussions on consumerist mothers, the legacy of dictatorship, and the difference between novelist and historian.
Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca" premiered at the Theater Lübeck on Friday, turning the timeless story of love, jealousy, and betrayal into a gripping psychological thriller, as reported by NDR.
The Club Cassiopeia and other cultural institutions on the RAW-Gelände in Berlin-Friedrichshain face eviction as early as June. According to the Tagesspiegel, the owner of the site, the Kurth Group, has broken off negotiations with the Senate and the district that had been ongoing for years.
Acting legend Jane Fonda has called the planned takeover of Warner Bros. by Paramount Skydance a direct attack on free speech and media freedom. At a counter-event to Donald Trump's birthday, she urged people to sign a petition against the merger.
James Graham's new work 'The Standard of Living' explores the life of economist John Maynard Keynes, from 1917 to his death in 1946. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, it opens at the Haymarket Theatre in September.
At a sold-out show in Berlin's Columbiahalle, Mike Skinner and his project The Streets delivered a party night of the highest order. The Brit played a greatest-hits set that sent the audience into ecstasy – and at the end, he let himself be carried through the crowd on their hands.
The Oper Frankfurt presents Händel's oratorio 'The Triumph of Time and Insight' as a Frankfurt premiere at the Bockenheimer Depot. Director Katharina Kastening stages the Baroque work as a contemporary critique of beauty obsession and self-optimization.
Tyra Banks has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix over the documentary series 'Inside American's Next Top Model,' which she claims is defamatory.
Munich has a rich pop music history, but successful careers often start elsewhere. A new themed history trail and a songwriter camp this summer aim to change that.
Journalist John Cassidy has written a book covering 250 years of criticism of capitalism. His conclusion: capitalism can be reformed – under one condition.
The new FIFA game on Netflix is a bitter disappointment. In his column, Josef Erl tears apart the Launch Edition as a historic debacle.
The Romería de El Rocío, one of Spain's largest religious pilgrimages, takes place from May 20 to 25 in El Rocío. Each year, over a million people make the pilgrimage to this significant festival to honor the Virgin Mary.
A Georgian criminal network has been sentenced in France to prison terms of up to seven years for stealing rare original editions of Russian literature from libraries and replacing them with forgeries. The thefts spanned five countries, according to Spiegel.
The museum in the former emergency reception camp in Gießen (NAL) celebrates its first anniversary – and is appearing at Gamescom and the Hessentag. A Trabant is among the exhibits.
A Paris court has sentenced six Georgians for stealing rare editions of Russian classics, as Euronews reports. The sentences range from 18 months suspended to seven years.
Sony is discontinuing streaming support on 71 older audio and video devices. Affected services include Netflix, Prime Video and Spotify, as reported by Digitalfernsehen.